Saurabh Somani
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There is nothing quite like watching searing pace in cricket. Batsmen are ducking, hopping, moving around. Feet are splayed. Hands look uncoordinated. The ball is hitting the bat rather than the other way around. You get to see premier batsmen looking and feeling not too different from what you might have felt when playing cricket in school and thinking square leg seems like a good area to take guard when the fastest bowler runs at you.
It’s rare to see that in top-level cricket. That is, until a Mayank Yadav comes along. You can see why his bursting into cricket’s collective consciousness has caused such a stir. It isn’t just that he is regularly going north of 150 kmph, though that in itself would make people sit up straighter. It’s that he’s bowling 150kmph+ and doing that without straying in line. The ball is landing in the spots that will cause maximum discomfort to batsmen. And he’s doing all this aged 21.
On IPL debut for Lucknow Super Giants, Yadav burst through Punjab Super Kings with pace, hostility and precision, taking 3 for 27 and never once bowling below 140kmph in his entire four overs.
Yadav’s journey had a touch of serendipity, but there’s also been a whole lot of challenges. They say it takes years of work to become an overnight success. Yadav was bowling in the nets for his Delhi state side in 2022. Delhi’s opponents were Uttar Pradesh, then coached by former India wicketkeeper Vijay Dahiya. Three things dovetailed for Yadav. Dahiya is himself from Delhi, and had therefore heard about the lanky pacer. He was also assistant coach with LSG at the time. And finally, both teams were having nets side by side, giving Dahiya a first-hand view of Yadav’s pace.
“Our assistant coach Vijay Dahiya sir, saw me there,” Yadav would say later. “He picked me from there. He showed interest and asked me for my videos too before the auction.”
Dahiya himself had no doubts about the potential of the young man he had seen. “I saw that raw pace,” Dahiya told Cricket8. “I really liked his action, energy everything you look for. But there’s nothing to beat raw pace.
“My first impression was that there was something special about him, and I approached him straightaway. I was convinced the moment I saw him. Right after that I spoke to Gautam (Gambhir, who was then LSG’s team mentor) and he was convinced.
“When we picked him up, the chat I had was that he’s not ready in the first year, but second year onwards he’ll be ready. So keep him around, get him a taste of what IPL is about, the competition, the pressure.”
Yadav did get picked in the IPL mega auction in 2022 by LSG for his base price of Rs 20 lakh. He didn’t get to play in that first season. He would have probably made his debut in IPL 2023, except that he had to sit out the whole season due to a hamstring injury. Even before IPL 2024, he had missed a big chunk of the domestic season due to injury, this time a side strain and rib fracture.
“All the physios I’ve met have told me that they are part of a fast bowler’s life,” Yadav said with a smile. “I got two-three major injuries in the last year, year and a half.”
By IPL 2024, Yadav was injury-free, and ready to be unleashed. He had played one first-class match, 17 List A games and 10 T20 matches before his IPL debut. Not a whole lot of games for someone who made his debut in senior cricket in December 2021, but a good enough chunk for a developing bowler who really put the pace in pacer.
Speed had fascinated Yadav since childhood. “Apart from cricket too, in life in general, I like things that have speed,” he said after his IPL debut. “Whether it is rockets, or planes or superbikes.”
It was an irony of fate that for someone who liked things fast, Yadav had to wait two years for his IPL debut. “I did have a lot of excitement for my debut. For the last two years I’ve been visualising only one thing: that how will the first ball I bowl on debut be. How will it feel to bowl in front of such a large audience,” he said. “Everyone told me that some nervousness will be there, some pressure will be there. But I didn’t feel it at all. As soon as the captain told me to bowl my first over, I felt inside that, ‘I belong to this place’. I had a lot of confidence.”
That confidence was not misplaced.
His first over had Jonny Bairstow beaten for pace once and cramped by the ball rushing onto him another time. In his second, he began with a 155.8 kmph thunderbolt – the fastest ball of IPL 2024 – that was past Shikhar Dhawan’s bat before his shot was completed. Dhawan was trying to use Yadav’s pace to glide and clip him, but the ball was too quick. Bairstow tried to counter-punch by making room, except that there was no room because the ball followed him like a guided missile. An inevitable top-edge gave Yadav his first wicket.
In his next, Prabhsimran Singh got six runs playing a pull shot, except that the ball went over backward point because it had climbed on him too quickly and flew off the edge. Yadav would end up taking out Prabhsimran as well as Jitesh Sharma, all to the short of length ball.
This is just the start, but what a start it’s been. Former fast bowlers have been gushing, including Yadav’s idol Dale Steyn. Experts have pointed to the uncomplicated clean action which at least reduces the risk of injury. Fans have been enthralled. The only thing quicker than Yadav’s deliveries has been his instant stardom.
Yadav told iplt20.com that in childhood, he liked the sight of fast bowlers roughing up batsmen. It was one of the things that inspired him to bowl fast.
There will be days in the future when he’s carted around the ground, when the lengths just keep going awry, when top-edges fall short of fielders or sail over the ropes. But in between those days, batsmen can expect some more roughing up coming their way.
